Supplier Assurance Manager

How much influence could you have if you were given the freedom to build a supplier assurance programme your way?

Rather than inheriting a system and spending your time maintaining it, you’ll have the opportunity to shape how a food manufacturing business approves, monitors and works with its suppliers.

And with a global raw material supply base of around 300 suppliers, there’s plenty to get your teeth into.

You’ll join an independently owned food manufacturing group that is investing in its Technical function and looking for someone to take ownership of supplier assurance across the business.

You’ll develop a practical, risk-based approach to supplier approval, build stronger links between Technical and Procurement, and make sure information from audits, goods intake and supplier performance is used to make better decisions.

This won’t be a role where you spend all your time behind a spreadsheet.

You’ll be working directly with suppliers, including travelling internationally to carry out audits, understand their operations and work through improvements. Back in the UK, you’ll collaborate with Procurement, Technical and factory teams to make sure supplier controls work in practice, not just on paper.

There’s a real variety to the technical challenge, too. International sourcing brings different regulatory requirements, food fraud and authenticity considerations, and changing expectations around food safety and legality. You’ll have the opportunity to bring all of that together into a supplier assurance programme that supports the business as it develops.

You’ll need experience in food manufacturing supplier assurance, including supplier approval, auditing, risk assessment and corrective actions. Experience with complex raw materials or internationally sourced ingredients would be particularly relevant.

Just as importantly, you’ll need to be a self-starter who enjoys building relationships, can influence people across different functions and is comfortable taking an idea through to implementation.

This is an opportunity to build something you can genuinely call your own, rather than simply look after what someone else has put in place.